Volume 1 - CH 4.3

“Next: 15th Squad! Commence entry!”

Late afternoon.

We had erected a command post by the mouth of the adit leading into the mines, and it was from there that Emilie dictated the operation. By her orders were squads sequentially sent down into the haunted depths—groups composed of an assortment of knights from the disparate brigades, namely of the infantry, sorcery, and support.

“2nd Squad, reporting! Five droll-hounds slain, madame! No damage or casualties incurred!”

Already were the first-sent squads making their way back to the surface, having completed their twofold charges of setting up minelights and exterminating the behemót lurking along their assigned routes. By all accounts, the operation was advancing smoothly.

“Have the 16th Squad made ready?” Emilie asked.

““They have, madame. Brigadier Buckmann and the rest are poised to deploy,” answered an officer.

“Have them standby at the adit. They’ve twenty minutes till entry.”

“Right away, madame!”

A veritable river of orders streamed on and on.

Brigadier Buckmann—that would be Felicia. The next squad to infiltrate the mine would do so under her command. The squads were by no means large hosts in and of themselves, and so to facilitate their dampened firepower, a number of executive officers were personally joining the fold.

“3rd Squad, reporting! We’ve slain one lockbird, three droll-hounds, and four zlatorogs! Reporting one light casualty! Equipment damage is minimal!”

“Very well. Have the injured’s gear checked again,” ordered Emilie. Echoes of the report reached the ears of the leadership stationed at the command post. A stir then simmered amongst them.

“Lockbirds’ve shown their ugly faces, eh?” one of them muttered.

“So it’s true what they say. Godrika’s no walk in the park,” another commented.

“‘Tis quite the sparse park, by my measure. Not as many of the damned critters inside as I’d thought,” a third observed, with whom I found agreement with. The behemót were not as teeming as expected—unnaturally so.

Could my prior predictions have come true? That a monstrosity had made its way into the mines? That by the beast’s menace the other behemót had been culled?

Such worries and more wormed about in my mind.

“The 16th Squad is next. Deploy them at once,” came Emilie’s next order.

“Aye, madame!”

“5th Squad, reporting! We’ve slain three jaculi and two acid-lizards! One light casualty reported! Minimal damage to equipment!”

Emilie paused. “The 5th? What of the 4th? Have they not returned?”

“Not as of yet, madame!”

“…Understood.”

An ill report. It would seem the operation’s weave had begun to fray.

♰

“Mareschal! The 14th Squad has returned!” came another report.

“Where’s the 12th? And the 13th for that matter?” Emilie asked.

“No word yet, madame!”

An embittered shade washed over Emilie’s face. By now, no less than six whole squads were absent in their return. An “unforeseen contingency” this was, if there ever was one.

“My Lady Mareschal, if I may…” approached an executive officer, with a voice quiet in its worry. A well-warranted bout of concern. Any seasoned officer would be stricken with the same unease, knowing his comrades have yet to show their faces from the depths of those infested tunnels.

Emilie had scarcely opened her lips before shouts filled the air—abrupt activity bristled amongst those gathered at the adit, who had been worriedly awaiting the absent squads’ return. Perhaps their patience was rewarded? Yet their shouts had nary a jump of joy in them.

At once, Emilie rose from the war-table and made her brisk way towards the adit. I followed close behind.

“What’s happened?” she inquired upon arrival.

“M-Mareschal! The 15th Squad, they’ve… they’ve returned,” came a hesitant reply.

Indeed, ‘they’ve returned’ was hardly appropriate, for the squad that emerged from the tunnel was composed of but a single, shambling man. An arm of his was pressed unusually flat, broken and bent beyond its every joint. Grating wheezes escaped his blood-spewing mouth, his lungs desperate for air.

“Have him up on a stretcher! Bring him to the tents! Medics, hurry!”

Emilie’s orders, livid and lamenting roars as they were, filled the mountain sky.

♰

Within the largest pavilion available, a camp bed was unfurled and formed, upon which the injured knight was gingerly laid.

Treatments, both manual and magickal, were given to him, and by their effects did he somehow recover enough to be able to speak coherently. As a rule, those treatments should have continued till his condition had stabilised, but this was a grave emergency—we had to know what happened in those tunnels, and this poor soldier was the sole soul that could tell the tale.

The forgathered leadership looked on, each and every one of their faces curdled with consternation. They all knew—from the man’s mouth would come no merry report. Indeed, his first words were none sought by any of their ears.

“…’Twas a greathorn. A greathorn…!”

A pother boiled up from amongst the shocked leadership.

The greathorn—a behemá in the likeness of a bull, burgeoned in its looming bulk, for the combined heights of two full-grown men cannot not hope to peek over its hulking withers.

Its tempestuous temperament fuels the sheer violence of its assaults: a single charge from this monster is enough to send many a body flying like mere shreds of paper tossed to the wind. And as per its namesake, from its head protrudes ponderous horns: dread spikes fraught with odyl, hardened to such excess that they would scarcely suffer a scratch in goring straight through a soldier, bones and armour all. And of defences, the greathorn is not lacking in the least, with a hide nigh impervious to extreme heat and cold both.

But like a betrayal to its erstwhile form, this bovine beast feasts not on flora, but flesh—that of men and behemót alike.

“Fates be fickle… What’s a devil like that doing down there?”

“Its kin are like to loiter ‘bout the mountainsides, no? Perhaps it beds in the tunnels—nay. What if it’s turned the tunnels into its own feeding trough?”

“No wonder the scouts hadn’t spotted it, then. We are come to seek silver but unearthed madness instead. What foul luck…”

At wit’s end, the leaders grumbled and groaned. The returned soldier, for his part, stared distantly at the ceiling.

“…The 4th Squad… and 6th…” he resumed reporting. “We found ‘em dead—all massacred… so we thought to surface, but there… There, we crossed the greathorn’s path…”

As his words went on, the marred man’s face furrowed and furrowed still. It was most apparent to any lookers-on that his most woeful wounds were the memories flashing before his eyes.

“So we retreated… quick as we could, but we… we weren’t the only ones, y’see…” he continued on, gasping here and there. “Four other squads—oh, bless ‘em…! All crammed and crazed in that gangway, riled in their own retreat… But then… the greathorn… ploughed through ‘em all…”

Sat by the camp bed, Emilie gave me a glance. The irony of the report was not lost upon her.

But what a hell it must have been for the poor souls.

Godrika’s tunnels are overall generous in their width, enough to easily host the wicked wendings of a three passūs-tall greathorn. Yet the same can hardly be said of hosting large numbers of men. To be trapped in those gangways in the midst of a toppled and tumbling stampede, only to be trampled flat by a beast so vast and vicious—surely, it was no less than a living nightmare.

“We packed our arses and ran… and somehow made it to sector three, in the southern quadrant… There was a… an abandoned stope that we came into. By then, only a few of us remained… but our luck dried up. The greathorn—’twasn’t far behind…”

His voice now quaked piteously.

“I was clinging to my greatshield… hadn’t let go of it once the entire way. I raised it… to save my soul from that monster’s charge… but I was… bashed and blown away, shield and all… That beat me up real proper, it did. And then… and then I ran away… and made it back up somehow…”

A true trauma, to be so overcome by fright and powerlessness, even now in safety. It was bad form for a man of the military to utter such frail words as “run away” in lieu of more palatable euphemisms as “retreat” or “withdrawal”, but who could blame him? Emilie certainly did not.

“You did well to come back to us,” she said softly. “Now are we enlightened to the situation, and we’ve you to thank, brave sir.”

“Mareschal… forgive me… please!” the man pleaded, lips atremble. “I’ve lost my comrades all… And my sword and shield—I threw them down… and ran like a dog… Oh! My shield… my poor shield… Saved me at the Erbelde, the dear thing did…”

“That I’m sorry to hear. It well-warded off the Nafilim arrows, but ‘twas an ill-match for the greathorn. Yet it has saved you once again, for you are alive before us all,” Emilie quietly consoled the soldier, her hand caressing his quivering cheek. Whimpers welled up from his throat, and it wasn’t long before he began to weep brokenly.

Emilie then rose to her feet and turned to the other leaders.

“I’m going in.”

Confusion coursed across their faces. “Mareschal!? Y-you musn’t!” A most appropriate reaction.

“The greathorn’s hide yields to my levinblade. I’ll have it laid low myself,” Emilie swore. “The situation is ill-resolved by our original plans. And as long as it remains so, we’ve no other choice than to strike down the beast with our mightiest swords.”

The leadership did all but wince in the face of their mareschal’s resolve. Yet what lurked beneath the moxie of her words were shades of shame and regret.

Several squads, each sharing the same path of retreat. When the dreadful time comes that they would all withdraw, wild in their despair against a terrible and unforeseen threat, they would surely find themselves tangled and tumbling over each other in those tunnels—possibilities that I clearly apprised Emilie of on the eve of the operation.

But her ears were deaf to my warnings, and the price for such pride was paid by her men with what else but their own lives, if not grievous scars upon their flesh and bones.

Emilie’s heart.

What a storm must be surging within it right now.

Never was she the sort to so easily accept a dreadful truth as that of droves dying by her own judgement. But she was a mareschal now, a commander of no small renown, and she must answer the situation at hand—there was no time to wallow in her woes. Plans were needed. Responsibilities had to be assumed. The chaos must be cut through with some semblance of control.

Thus did she decide to wrangle the plight with her own hands. But it was a decision perhaps also founded upon another exigency: the nagging need to punish herself for this dear failure.

“Gerd, Raakel, and Sheila shall accompany me! My swain as well!” Emilie announced emphatically. “Under-Mareschal, you shall remain here and take command in my stead! If we do not resurface in quarter-day’s time, then take us for dead and return to headquarters immediately. And there, assemble a commission for inquiry into this incident. Any questions?”

The visibly petrified leadership gave their consent with all but their stunned silence.

“Mareschal,” I called out to her, to which she nodded and looked back at the injured soldier.

“My good sir. By your precious words, the 4th and 6th Squads were wiped out, yes?” Emilie asked him. “What of the other four? The ones killed in their retreat. Do you know of their assignments?”

“Madame… they were the 9th and 10th Squads… and the 12th and 13th, as well,” he answered with much difficulty.

Emilie turned about and nodded to me once more.

Each and every departed soul of each and every one of the six total massacred squads—all of them had family and loved ones, to be sure. And none amongst those left behind would welcome the news, whether true or erroneous. Emilie and myself, included.

Yet I kept a candle lit by the window sill of my darkened heart.

Of the ruined squads named, the 16th went unmentioned.

There was still one dear hope.

Somewhere, down in those tunnels, she was still there—my sister, Felicia.

────　Notes　────

Adit

In mining, the ground-level entrance leading into a mine, taking on the form of a horizontally inclining tunnel.

Gangway

In mining, an underground tunnel connecting two different rooms. Tracks are laid into the ground to facilitate the use of rail carts for transporting material.

Passus

(plural: passūs) A unit of measure used by the ancient Romans, taken from the length of a pace (2 steps). 1 metre is equal to 0.6757 of a passus. A passus, therefore, can be roughly equated to 1 and a half metres.

Stope

In mining, an underground chamber dug out once a mineral vein has been found. The scope of the chamber increases as more ore is mined from its walls. Material may be cleared via manual labour or explosive means. Stopes may be backfilled, that is, refilled with the unneeded material mined from it, to keep it from caving in and weakening the mines’ structure.